Obsidian by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Estimated reading time: 10 minutes 

Book Series: Lux

Book: Obsidian (Book 1)

Author: Jennifer L. Armentrout

Number of pages: 402

Genre: Paranormal, Romance, Young Adult, Action-Adventure, Fantasy

Attended Audience Age:  Young Adult

Medium Type (physical, digital, audio): physical

Book rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Summary:

Katy Swartz and her mother moved their entire life from Florida to a small town in West Virginia. Their next-door neighbors, Daemon and Dee, are more than welcoming and unusual from the start. After a heated introduction between Katy and Daemon, Dee quickly becomes friends with Katy and is eager to show her around town and the local high school. But every interaction with her new neighbors makes Katy question who they really are. Exactly why does Daemon keep showing up around Katy when all they do is bicker? Is Katy just imagining Dee becoming translucent? And why is half the town staring at Katy like she’s a problem? Whatever is going on between them, Katy has to learn to trust her new and strangely alluring neighbors.

Qualities:

Prose: The narrative is quickly introduced as simple yet alluring and comedic, encouraging young readers to flow with sudden shifts. Description, inner dialogue, and communication are essential to the story's appeal.

Character Development: The main and side characters develop in depth as they introduce each other's relationships, strengths, and weaknesses. It delves deeper into the characters' backgrounds, giving them greater depth and the reasoning behind their actions.

World Building: Following Katy as she navigates her new surroundings, we are experiencing her life and inner dialogue through her lens. The world steadily branches out, helping us learn more about some characters' cosmic origins and the unusual events shaping the environment.

Recommendation: 

I recommend this book to anyone interested in a quick, unusual read about supernatural characters with cosmic origins. This was a fun book to read, a way to pass the time while also immersing myself in a young, blossoming relationship between two unlikely people. 

(Please be aware that this is a 5 book series with an additional spin-off series).

Notable Quotes:

• “I’d always avoided confrontation in the past, but this guy was flipping my bitch switch like nothing else” (p. 10).

• “The spark of pain cleared the haze from my head and the fear from last night doused my veins in ice water. I lay there for several minutes, taking a deep, calming breath as I tried to gain control of my spiraling emotions. I was alive—thanks to Daemon, who apparently was also my pillow” (p. 105).

• “I shot him a dark look. ‘Shut up. You you don’t know that everyone on this planet thinks you’re good-looking.’ I grimaced, shocked to even have this conversation. ‘Aliens—if they exist—are little green men with big eyes and spindly arms…or giant insects or something like a lumpy little creature” (p. 163).

Related Music:

• Demons by Imagine Dragons

• Rescue Me by OneRepublic

• Space Song by Beach House